Tags
Antonine wall, Bo'Ness, picts, romans, scotland, shipbreaking, Stirlingshire, virtual journey, Watt
Bo’Ness
Day 22.157.9 miles.
Bo’Ness is a shortened form of the real name of the town-Borrowstounness. I can see why the Bo’Nessies shortened it. The full town name is quite a mouthfull. Why Bo’Ness though? Why not Bo’Stone (pronounced Boston) or Borston (pronounced Boston) or Borrowness (pronounced Boston)? Or just plain Bones?
Bo’Ness (not pronounced Boston) is notable as being the eastern end of the Antoine Wall. This was one of the two walls built by the Romans to keep Northern Britons in Northern Britain and stop them coming south to cause trouble. The Romans had planned an invasion of Scotland and built a fort to house 12,000 soldiers but gave the notion up after constant harassment from those troublesome Picts. At times they couldn’t round up peasants to obtain slave labour without a mob of blue painted savages in kilts hitting them with swords.
As such, Roman artifacts turn up here on a regular basis including, it is said, some of the stone used to build the local mansion house which used to be part of a Roman fortlet. Apparently a fortlet is a fort that is yet to grow up. Early recycling!
In more modern times (but still a while ago), James Watt built a prototype steam engine in a house that is still standing here. But the neighbours no longer complain about the noise.
The town’s library was half funded by the Scottish robber-baron-philanthropist; Andrew Carnegie. However, the time capsule sealed under the building did not contain any artifacts attributable to him. £5,000 was a lot of money back then but not, apparently, enough to get your name in a buried pickle jar.
One of the more interesting industries here was clay mining. Really? You have to mine the stuff?
Finally, Bo’Ness was another shipbreaking yard. We get a bit more colour in the description here; the ships were run aground on the city streets at full speed to create a kind of cheap dry dock. As soon as the ship came to rest, the crew would weigh it’s anchors to keep it in place.
That spectacular sight Is in the past now, but we can imagine the sight of ships screaming up the beach towards us as we push off towards Queensferry.